Knesset to hold hearings on validity of IDF conversions

Plesner, Rotem trade barbs over pending legislation; State Control Committee also slated to convene on the issue.

By REBECCA ANNA STOIL, GIL STERN STERN SHEFLER

September 12, 2010 00:58

4 minute read.

YOHANAN PLESNER.
(photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimski)

The Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee will hold a hearing later
this month to discuss the petition being heard in the High Court of Justice
questioning whether marriage authorities can reject the legitimacy of IDF
conversions.

MK Yohanan Plesner (Kadima) requested the hearing after
attorney Yochi Gnessin, an official from the State Prosecutor’s office, told the
High Court on Monday that there was “a problem” with the army
conversions.

Speaking during arguments concerning a petition filed by
Itim – The Jewish Life Information Center to rescind a decision by haredi Rabbi
Avraham Sherman that invalidated conversions carried out by Haim Druckman, a
national religious rabbi who headed the State Conversion Authority from 2002 to
2008, Gnessin reportedly told the justices that the approximately 4,500
conversions carried out by national religious rabbis as part of an IDF program
were invalid unless authorized by the haredi- dominated Chief
Rabbinate.

Following the court session, Plesner requested that both the
Knesset committee and its Subcommittee for Manpower Issues convene to discuss
the issue, as well as to discuss the possibility of shoring up IDF conversions
by anchoring them in legislation. The Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee is
expected to convene on September 21, at which time the subject will be brought
up for debate.

It will not be the only committee to jump on the
topic.

The State Control Committee, chaired by MK Yoel Hasson (Kadima),
was also slated to convene immediately after Rosh Hashana to discuss Gnessin’s
statement.

“The prosecutor’s answer to the High Court of Justice is
nothing less than scandalous,” Hasson said. “The conversions of thousands of
soldiers are now in doubt. The state and the Chief Rabbinate must recognize all
of the conversions that were carried out by the IDF. I intend to convene the
committee for a special hearing in order to clarify the questions and to ensure
the legitimacy of IDF conversions.”

Plesner, referring to the party
behind pending legislation regarding conversions, called it “the moment of truth
for Israel Beiteinu.”

“We will all discover if their commitment to
thousands of immigrant soldiers, who have linked their fates with that of the
people of Israel, is canceled out due to non-Zionist political deals they cooked
up with the haredi parties,” the lawmaker said.

But Israel Beiteinu MK
David Rotem, who is spearheading the conversion legislation, as well as a bill
on marriage laws, cast doubt on Gnessin’s reported statements, as well as on the
intent of the Kadima MKs.

“I am not certain that what was published was
[actually] said,” Rotem explained. “I know Yochi Gnessin, and she tries to be as
lenient as possible regarding conversion. Israel Beiteinu has been trying to
relax the laws for a long time so that the rabbi who converts can also later
perform the convert’s marriage.”

Turning to the charges leveled by
Plesner and Hasson, Rotem said they “gave in to the Reform and Conservative
movements and voted against our bills,” and in so doing “abandoned the IDF
soldiers and chose instead to curry favor with those two
movements.”

“Israel Beiteinu’s conversion bill would ground the current
system of IDF conversions in law, and also ensure that conversions will not be
able to be canceled,” he said. “But Kadima, out of populist motives, attacked
the bill. We, on the other hand, will [address] the problem, not through
populism but by actually solving it.”

Plesner said Rotem’s bill would
only strengthen the Chief Rabbinate. Legislation that could be advanced, he
said, would oblige the rabbinate to recognize the special religious court
established by the IDF.

The IDF has argued that it always acts with the
agreement of the Chief Rabbinate, but Gnessin’s reported comments seem to
indicate that the rabbinate has other ideas, and both inside and outside the
Knesset, reactions poured in on Tuesday over her remarks.

“The conversion of IDF soldiers in the framework of the
IDF Chaplaincy’s Nativ program is a completely valid conversion approved by
Rabbi Haim Druckman,” Sharansky said. “Nativ is the biggest achievement of
conversion efforts in Israel and the Jewish Agency will continue to support it
together with the government.”

Rabbi Gilad Kariv, the head of the Israel
Reform movement and a past director of the Israel Religious Action Center, its
litigation arm, was irate over Gnessin’s statements and said they illustrated
Israel’s abandonment of soldiers who seek to officially join the fold of
Judaism.

“For over 20 years, the state prosecutor has provided a tailwind
for the extreme and severe approach of rabbinical establishment
officials who
refuse to recognize the Jewish and Zionist challenge in opening the
gates of
Judaism to olim,” Kariv said. “The doubt cast by the government
representative
regarding the conversion of male and female soldiers sent by the same
government
to serve in the army is another stage in the despicable saga of the
conversion
crisis.”

Rabbi Uri Regev, the head of Hiddush – For Religious Freedom and
Equality, said that “the state’s position is undoubtedly scandalous, and
we must
battle it. But together with that, my opinion is that the solution is
not to
force, through the court system, modern Orthodox judges and haredi
municipal
rabbis to accept conversions they view as unacceptable. The solution is
to
eliminate the monopoly that the state affords the Orthodox rabbinate,
which is
increasingly more extreme.”

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